Wednesday, 5 February 2014

This production directed by Peter Brook was immensely influential. Brook approached the play with deliberate radicalism, taking up the baton from Granville-Barker almost 60 years earlier who innovatively presented the play in London on an apron stage with minimal set.
The set consisted of a brilliantly-lit white box which replaced the traditional Dream set design of pretty forest and classical Athenian court. The actors wore bright silks and performed circus skills such as plate-spinning and trapeze-swinging, inspired by Chinese acrobats.
By doubling the roles of Oberon and Theseus and those of Titania and Hippolyta (played by Alan Howard and Sara Kestelman), Brook made it clear that the Fairy King and Queen were the alter egos of the mortal rulers. In this way, Brook suggested that the conflicts and erotic adventures of the nocturnal wood were the uncontrollable eruption of subconscious fears and desires

Why do you think peter brook's production of 'a midsummer nights dream' was so revolutionary?
Peter brook's midsummer nights dream is revolutionary because he sent a message to other artist that we can interpret ideas or the script for him and make it you're own. That abstract is more interesting and personal for our audience, to make them more involved in the art or performance. He helped other possible artist discover that its time for classical and original art or theatre to become more our own and modern.

Monday, 3 February 2014

This lesson we went through the script and highlighted our lines and rehearsed parts that the class would have to say in synchronisation. we also was set objectives:

Being off script

knowing cue lines

Tone of voice

Style of ensemble:

formation

synchronisation

image through body language

speaking and moving as one

chorus as narration

Miss. day told us what she is marking us on and what we have to be able to do on this term assessment which is:

how well you take direction and feedback

quality of performance

how you interpret the script and style

This lesson it helped me get a feel of my character and what they say and know what I'm saying in the script but it also lets me see how I'm meant to be feeling in certain scenes which will help me work on my character development so I know how to feel or what I'm meant to be showing facially or physically.

This lesson was helping us understand the plot to aggamemnom and what was the relationship between the characters, this lesson helped me hugely to understand everything to do with the script and will improve my performance especially if I'm suppose to be explaining it. the skills I learnt today was how to research and understand my scripts story line more so I know what story I'm telling, what part I have in the story and how I should feel as my character.

Today we studied Steven Burchoff and how he uses the full potential of his actors and stage, so to understand how useful and effective this is during performances we tried some starter exercises of teamwork and ensemble room exercises.

Frog pad
The key to this exercise is to have good spacial awareness and good eye contact with others. you have to imagine that you are a bunch of frog pads floating on top of the water and that someone who jumps is the frog, when the frog jumps you must imagine that you the frog pad are in the water and that that jump is going to cause a ripple effect in the water, as a class at first we were slightly slow in some areas but once we kept working together as a class and figuring out when it was our turn to jump it became successful, because we used good listening skills, teamwork and concentration.

The plate
so as a class we had to imagine we were on a plate that was balanced on a stick I was the person on the opposite side of the whole class and wherever I went they had to be opposite of me other wise the plate would drop. this was a fun exercise and really helps you with special awareness, teamwork, communication skills and reacting well in time.

Make a room out of body's
This exercise was hard we had to create a room with our body's this was challenging because we had to think of small details as well for creating a room and as a class we wasn't working together each clique group was doing there own thing while other cliques was also trying to figure out. but eventually at the end of each one we came together as a group and really thought about what furniture or objects we could be, this helped up more with realising that if we are going to do things as an ensemble then we need to have good team work skills.

After all the exercises Miss. Day gave us a script called aggamemnom and said that Steven Burchoff's version is really good for staging, special awareness and teamwork as actors. Myself and other class mates have been given the part of the chorus that narrate parts of the story. I'm really interested in Steven's style and the script itself and cant wait to see what its going to look like staged and it being acted out.

Overall this lesson was really good to prepare us for the script and the style of how we are going to do it, which will be as an ensemble.
The skills I learnt in this lesson where team work, listening and concentration, this will help me respond and react to others body language or lines physically. like another group piece we are doing called 'A Tell Tale Heart'.

For a self study we had to research the plot and characters of the story 'A tell tale heart'. doing this helped me understand the language and content of the story, also helping me understand the main character more and what is wrong with he/she. We then shared what we had found out about the story and what its style was, so even if you didn't have information that the other classmates had then you could just write them down and then you haven't missed out on anything important.Style

abstract

surreal

dream-like

unrealistic

fantasy

over the top

We then was given a sheet by Miss. Day of information on Edgar Allen Poe it was a sheet of information based on the famous writer to help us understand him more and what kind of style his writing was which is gothic fiction, horror, satires, humour and hoaxes.

Overall this lesson really helped me understand not just the story and characters but the writer as well.